Statistically Wolf Creek appears to be a fairly average ski area. It’s 1600 acres, which places it solidly in the middle of the pack for rideable terrain. It has seven lifts to serve that terrain and a vertical of just over 1,600 feet. There’s no terrain park at all.
There is one statistic, however, that sets Wolf Creek apart from other resorts Continue Reading…
We left Salt Lake City to visit Wolf Creek in February, excited to see how Colorado’s best snow stacks up against Utah’s self-proclaimed “best snow on Earth”.
While there we got to ask the locals and visitors what they liked about Wolf Creek. Some people mentioned the super-chill small town atmosphere. Mentions of the hot springs in nearby Pagosa Springs were unavoidable. But, one thing was universal: Wolf Creek’s 465 annual inches of snow, which is the largest annual snowfal of any hill in Colorado.
Who wouldn’t love that?
Telluride has always held a certain mystique for me. Growing up we watched ski and snowboard videos every year in the months before the snow fell, while dreaming of the winter to come. I lived in a small town in British Columbia. The exotic names of the ski resorts we saw always got jumbled together, Vail, Squaw Valley, Chamonix, but one always stood out — Telluride. Continue Reading…
My expectations were high when we visited Telluride. It was my first visit. We arrived in a whiteout that had us driving 30 miles an hour on the highway there. The first night the hill received several inches of snow and it kept snowing all the next day. The second day the sun came out and I got to ride Telluride the way it’s meant to be ridden — on steep pitches with over a foot of fresh pow.
This is how it was: legendary.
Telluride is a town named after a rare exotic metal that became a rare — and in it’s own way exotic — destination.
Telluride has been a mythical place for me ever since I heard about it in the ski movies that my family watched each year in the weeks leading up to opening day. Narrators always spoke about Telluride with deep reverence. It was a legend.
When I finally visited in 2013 the resort it lived up to my ideas about it as a young boy. Pretty much every house in Telluride is a ski-in ski-out if you’re willing to walk a few blocks in your boots. Tourism development has been kept largely separate from the old mining town itself, helping to maintain it’s old mountain town charm. The mountains are as epic as any I’ve seen.
When we visited we asked the locals how they felt about it. This is what they told us.
When I opened up the Crested Butte trail map for the first time in my hotel room I was awestruck. I had never seen so much black on a trail map. Black and double-black diamond runs appeared to occupy more than half of the resort. About one-third of the Crested Butte’s 1,547 acres was, it turned out, was in fact extreme double-black diamond terrain.
“Could this be my dream hill?” I wondered. Continue Reading…
I went on a mission to find the best ski and snowboard vacation experience in the USA. During my trip, I visited Crested Butte, and then compiled what I learned into this micro guide.
The video above contains lots of useful information, but, if you want to carry have this information on the hill where it will really come in handy, bookmark this guide on your phone. Continue Reading…
